Committee Reports > List of Committees > Joint > 1980 > Committee on Commercial State-Sponsored Bodies > Report No. 12 - National Building Agency, Limited

APPENDIX 21

LETTER TO CLERK TO JOINT COMMITTEE FROM CARLOW URBAN DISTRICT COUNCIL

I refer to your letter of the 14th November in the above connection and set out hereunder the Council’s comments in relation to this matter.

The NBA has undertaken a series of contract schemes on behalf of Carlow Urban District Council over the past five years. There is an excellent relationship between the NBA staff, both technical and administrative, with the UDC staff. The works which have been undertaken to date on an agency basis have been well researched, well documented and executed to a high standard of workmanship. The working relationship with the NBA staff is of an extremely high level and is due to a great extent to the direction and assistance of the Board’s Principal Architect, Mr. E. McKiernan.

The following comments are relevant to the points raised by the Joint Committee:

(a) There has been a successful co-operation between the NBA and the UDC in provision of housing in the area.

(b) My experience is that there has been full consultation between the Council and the NBA in agreeing technical briefs in relation to housing design.

(c) There has been full and comprehensive consultation to facilitate agreement on housing design and construction programme. The NBA have co-operated with the Council in this regard in commissioning an Area Action Plan to facilitate determination of construction programme, etc.

(d) Supervision of construction by NBA has been of consistently high standard. Procedures in taking over a completed scheme have been agreed with Mr. McKiernan and are satisfactory. The Council’s involvement in the construction progress is facilitated by representation at a monthly site meeting attended by Council Engineering staff, NBA supervisory staff and Contractor’s representative. This monthly meeting contributes to:

1. Council familiarisation with works progress,

2. An opportunity to discuss possible variations or amendments as they arise.

(e) The standard of houses completed to date under NBA Schemes has been at a high level. Maintenance faults have been restricted in number and are of no serious consequence. Faults, where they do arise, are notified by the Council’s Clerk-of-Works to the NBA staff for rectification by the Contractor. This system is operating satisfactorily.

The only further comments the Council would care to make in relation to this matter is whilst there is satisfactory liaison on the technical side of the NBA the amount of administrative information passed from the NBA to the Urban Council is very very small and it is considered that a liaison could operate to the benefit of both partners of the administrative side. A recent example in this case is that the Local Authority were not advised by the National Building Agency officially of the proposed start of a housing scheme and it remains to the Contractor to make contact with the Town Clerk after he has started work. However this is a relatively small complaint in this connection but it is one which the Council feel could be improved upon.